How a generation of young people in Bangladesh pressured the leader who had ruled all his life
Jannatul Prome hopes to leave Bangladesh for further education or perhaps a job after graduating from university, disillusioned by a system he says does not reward decent people and offers little opportunity for young people. .
“The fees here are very limited,” said the 21-year-old, who would have left sooner if his family had enough money to pay for him and his older siblings to attend a foreign university at the same time.
But recent events have given him hope that one day he can return to a changed Bangladesh: After 15 years in power, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country last week. — driven out by young protesters, Prome among them, who say they are fed up with their increasingly authoritarian regime that stifled dissent, supported elites and widened inequality.
Students first took to the streets of Bangladesh in June, demanding an end to a law that reserved up to 30 percent of government jobs for descendants of combat veterans. the country's 1971 war of independence against Pakistan. Protesters say supporters of Hasina's Awami League, which led the struggle — and are already among its elite — have benefited. Quotas and others for marginalized groups meant that only 44 percent of civil servants received the award.
It is no coincidence that such jobs are at the center of the movement: They are among the most stable and well-paid in a country whose economy has boomed in recent years but has not created jobs. strong and professional for the well-educated middle class. .
And it's no surprise that Generation Z is leading this rebellion: Young people like Prome are among the most frustrated and affected by the lack of opportunity in Bangladesh — and at the same time, not they care about taboos and old narratives. reflected quota system.
Their willingness to break with the past was evident when Hasina downplayed their demands in mid-July, asking who, if not freedom fighters, should be given government jobs. .
“Who would do that? The grandson of Razakars?” Hasina responded, using deeply offensive words referring to those who had collaborated with Pakistan to end Bangladesh's independence struggle.
But the student protesters used the word as a badge of honor. They marched in Dhaka University, chanting, “Who are you? Who am I? Razakar. Who said this? The dictator.”
The next day, protesters were killed in clashes with security forces—further fueling the protests, which expanded into a broader uprising against Hasina's rule.
Sabrina Karim, a Cornell University professor who studies political violence and military history in Bangladesh, said many of the protesters were too young to remember a time before he was prime minister. Virtue.
They were raised on the history of the struggle for independence, like the generations before them — with Hasina's family at the center. His father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was the first leader of independent Bangladesh and was later assassinated in a coup. But Karim says this narrative means less to the young protesters than it does to their grandparents.
“It's not the same as it was (before). And they want something new,” he said.
For Nourin Sultana Toma, a 22-year-old student at the University of Dhaka, Hasina's comparison of student protesters to traitors made her realize the gulf between what the youth and what the government can provide.
He said he has watched Bangladesh gradually succumb to inequality and people lose hope that things will improve.
The country's longest-serving prime minister boasted of raising per capita incomes and transforming Bangladesh's economy into a global competitor—the fields turned into garment factories and the bumpy roads gone. winding highway. But Toma said he saw the daily struggle of people trying to buy essential goods or find work and that their demands for basic rights were met with insults and violence.
“It can no longer be tolerated,” said Toma.
The youth of Bangladesh are acutely aware of this economic hardship. Eighteen million young people — in a country of 170 million — are neither working nor in school, according to Chietigj Bajpaee, who researches South Asia at the Chatham think tank. House. And after the pandemic, private sector activity has further declined.
Many young people try to study abroad or move overseas after graduation in hopes of finding a decent job, destroying the middle class and ending up with a brain drain.
“Class differences have increased,” said Jannatun Nahar Ankan, 28, who works for a non-profit organization in Dhaka and joined the protest.
Despite these problems, none of the protesters seemed to really believe that their movement would be able to topple Hasina.
Rafij Khan, 24, was on the streets preparing to join the protest when he heard Hasina had resigned and fled the country. He called home several times to see if he could confirm the news.
He said that on the last day of the protest, people from all classes, religions and professions joined the students in the streets. Now they were hugging each other, while the others sat on the ground in disbelief.
“I can't describe the joy that people felt that day,” he said.
Some of that joy is fading now because of the magnitude of the task ahead. the country is preparing for new elections.
The hope of most students is that the interim government will have time to fix Bangladesh's institutions while a new political party — not led by the old political dynasties — emerges.
“If you asked me to vote in an election right now, I don't know who I would vote for,” Khan said. “We don't want to replace one dictatorship with another.”
The young people who took to the streets are often described as the “I hate politics” generation.
But Azaher Uddin Anik, a 26-year-old digital security specialist and recent graduate from Dhaka University, says that is wrong.
They don't hate all politics — just the divisive politics of Bangladesh.
And although he admits that the structural reforms the country needs now may be more difficult than removing the prime minister, he hopes that for the first time in a while.
“My recent experience tells me that the impossible can happen,” he said. “And maybe it's not too late.”
